


the world as we know it.

by JustSomeGirlll



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, But it's mostly just angst, F/F, and a lot of miscommunication, there's gonna be some fluff so it's not all angsty, this is really just a story with and about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:53:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27217492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustSomeGirlll/pseuds/JustSomeGirlll
Summary: Civilisation collapsed seven years ago, and the last remaining scraps of government fell not long after. Lena's searching for something but doesn't know what, and Kara's trying to do good in a world that only rewards the bad. They're both a little broken and the world is far from perfect, but it's all that's left. This is the world as they know it.OR,the zombie apocalypse AU that's mostly just a love story, which has been sitting in my drafts folder for over a year.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 31
Kudos: 192





	1. prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, folks!
> 
> i tried to do something with this story about a year ago, so if the title sounds familiar that's probably why. anyhow, i rewrote what i had and now i've got this little story.
> 
> happy reading :)

It happens like this.

Kara wakes to sharp, relentless banging against her front door. She grumbles out a curse as she sits up on her couch, blanket pooling around her waist, and the magazine she’d been reading before passing out slides off her chest and falls to the floor.

“Kara, it’s me!” A voice, which Kara very quickly realises to be Alex, shouts from behind the door. “Open up!”

Kara tosses her blanket off, reaches for her glasses, and pads over to the door as Alex continues her banging. “Geez, Alex, wha—”

Alex pushes her way in and kicks the door shut behind her. “Have you seen what’s been happening?”

“What?” Kara says, still in her sleepy haze.

“They’re saying it’s some kind of outbreak,” Alex starts, words coming out fast and a little jumbled. “First, they were saying it’s isolated, but it’s not. It’s not isolated, Kara. It’s everywhere. Reports are coming in from all across the country, the world—”

“Alex, what are you talking about?”

Alex grabs Kara’s arm and drags her over to the window. She pulls the curtain open and points to the world outside. “ _That_.”

It’s absolute chaos outside, and Kara’s sure that her twelve-hour day at work and the two glasses of wine she had when she got home, is the only reason she didn’t wake up before. There’s a car wrapped around a utility pole further up the street and people running through the street screaming bloody murder. Sirens whir some distance away, an orange glow erupts closer to the city centre, and dark plumes of smoke spread across the city.

“It looks like…” Kara trails off, unsure of what to compare it too.

“The end of the world,” Alex supplies, her voice hollow. “That’s what some people are saying anyway.”

“What do we do?”

“We can’t stay here. We should go to Midvale. All the major cities have been hit pretty bad, so we might have a chance up there.”

“Right.”

“And Mom’s there too.”

“Right. Yeah.” Kara nods, eyes still fixed on the street, her thoughts racing.

“Kara.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s one more thing.”

“Yeah?” Kara snaps her gaze away from the window and looks at her sister.

“Some people out there… they aren’t people anymore. They’re saying it’s the outbreak—some kind of infection that makes them sick. Whatever it is, it changes people’s brains. Makes them different. Dangerous. You need to be careful.”

“Okay.”

They stumble out onto the curb out front Kara’s building, and the first thing Kara notices is that it’s quiet. Not silent, because people are screaming and pleading for help, there are whirring sirens all around, and then there’s an explosion off in the distance, but everything just feels quiet. Subdued. Just… not quite as loud as what she’d been expecting.

And then one of the not-human humans grabs Kara and bites down on her upper arm. Kara screams in pain, causing Alex to turn around. She grabs a scrap piece of two-by-four from the side of a building and hits the creature in the back and then square in the head. It falls to the ground, and Alex’s gaze drops to Kara’s arm. Kara follows her sister’s line of sight and sees her torn sleeve and the bite mark on her bicep. It’s not deep, but it’s bleeding, and there are already nasty shades of black, purple, and green blooming around the mark.

Kara and Alex stare at each other, their thoughts unsaid but loud:

_Fuck._

_Fuck._

_What now?_

_I don’t know._

_I’m sorry._

_It’s okay._

_I love you._

_I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: [@just-some-girlll](https://just-some-girlll.tumblr.com/)


	2. summer

SEVEN YEARS LATER

The sound of a baseball bat connecting with a skull is surprisingly quiet—more of a muffled _thwomp_ as opposed to the explosive sound you’d expect from such a blow. Then there’s a wet _crunch_ where bone crumbles beneath the force of the swing, but you really have to be listening to actually hear that part. It used to bother Lena—that sound. She threw up the first few times. But she’s used to it now—doesn’t even flinch—and sometimes she wonders if that’s a good thing or not.

The walker stops its gurgling, head bashed in, and now a lifeless mass on the ground. Lena takes several steps back and drops to her knees, breathes a deep sigh of relief, and lets her eyes close as she calms her racing heart. She digs her fingers into the damp earth, feels the hot breeze against her face, all so she can remind herself that she’s still alive.

 _Breathe in. Hold. One, two_ —

A twig breaks. Lena’s eyes snap open. She’s on her feet and reaching for her baseball bat in a matter of seconds. However, where she expects to see a walker lunging towards her, she finds a woman. Blonde, tortoiseshell glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, a bow slung over her shoulder, and hands raised in surrender.

“Whoa, sorry. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that,” the woman says, looking apologetic.

“What do you want?” Lena keeps her voice firm and baseball bat at the ready, because she knows that kindness and vulnerability are not rewarded in this new world.

“I saw that walker making a run for you. Wasn’t sure if you needed any help.”

“So you just what? Thought you’d offer your assistance?”

“Yeah.” And the woman even shrugs, as though that’s a normal thing to do.

“I had it handled.” Lena reaches for her knapsack. “But thanks anyway, I guess.”

They stand in the forest clearing, the sun beating down on them, and cicadas _click_ ing. Lena adjusts her bag straps and the woman sort of awkwardly shifts her weight as she wrings her fingers together. Water trickles down the nearby stream, a bird chirps some distance away, and the stench of the walker permeates the air, made only worse by the mid-summer heat.

“Where’re you heading?” the woman asks.

“Why would I tell you that? I don’t know you.”

“Kara.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name, it’s Kara.”

“Good for you. I’m still not telling you where I’m going though.”

“That’s fair.” The woman— Kara, rubs the back of her neck. “But I’m alone and heading west, so, if you just so happened to be heading that way too, maybe we could walk together. Keep each other company, y’know?”

“That’s not very smart.”

“What’s not?”

“Telling a stranger that you’re alone and where you’re going. That’s the kind of thing that’ll get you killed.”

“Are you gonna kill me?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Kara asks with a half-smile.

“Are you always this annoying? Because if so, you’re not doing a very good job of convincing me to walk with you.”

“Ah!” Kara grins. “You admit you were considering it then.”

Lena rolls her eyes. “It was nice meeting you,” she says, and then adds: “Kara,” as though testing out the name. It’s not a bad name, and it does seem to suit the woman, but Lena’s not interested in a new friend, and she really should get moving, so… “Bye.” Lena turns on her heels and starts walking up towards a nearby road that should lead her past a gas station before connecting to the interstate.

“Hold on a sec,” Kara says and jogs to catch up. “Are you sure you don’t want some company? We don’t even have to talk to each other, just, y’know, walk. Could be fun.”

“Look, I’m sure you’re a nice person, and I appreciate that you haven’t tried to kill me or take my stuff, but I’ve been fucked over by ‘nice people’ before. So, I’m not interested in a friend or a walking buddy, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Kara nods and takes several steps back. “Good luck out there.”

“You too.”

~

The nights used to be bad, almost unbearable, and Lena supposes the silence may have had something to do with that. It hung in the air, suspended like the moment before falling glass shatters on the ground. And it lingered too. Always watching, never fading. It’s not so bad anymore, but that’s because the days are like that too. Now there’s no real distinction between the silence of day and the silence of night. It’s all just one continuous stretch of nothing.

Lena spies a small cluster of cars blocking the road up ahead and decides that stopping for the night is her safest choice. She’s had enough close calls to know that wandering around at night is only asking for trouble. Sometimes that trouble comes in the form of walkers, and other times, it’s desperate survivors who will do anything to live another day.

The survivors in the cities are probably worse than anything she’ll encounter out here. Still, it doesn’t hurt to exercise caution. Hunters, they’re called. They set traps for people entering the city in search of refuge, either luring them in with shallow promises of safety or simply just ambushing them. It all ends the same way, though: an execution. Lena always did what she could to save those people, but it very rarely yielded positive results. There was one time where she was able to help. It was a mother and daughter—Sam and Ruby she would come to learn. She spotted them from her perch on the fire escape and was able to get their attention before they wandered too deep into the city.

They stuck together after that—a little over a year if Lena’s got her dates right. But when a horde of walkers entered the city during one of their supply runs, they had to flee. In all the chaos, though, they were separated. She waited at their meet point on the outskirts of the city for a few days, but Sam and Ruby never showed up.

Lena shakes the memory loose and does a quick check of the immediate area. Satisfied that it’s safe, she claims the backseat of a maroon sedan for the night.

~

It’s close to a week before Lena finds another town. This one’s nestled between two National Parks, and from her perch on the cliff overlooking the town, there look to be three or four roads in and out. It seems it was once a well-serviced town, which gives her hope that she may be able to stock up on a few important items, maybe even find some of the less essential items that are harder to acquire these days. She could really go for a glass of wine.

Lena takes her time exploring the town, finds that it has more than what she’d been expecting. She checks out the pharmacy, small corner store, and manages to get everything she needs. She’s even lucky enough to find a bottle of rum stashed in the backroom of a delicatessen, too. It’s cheap, that much Lena knows, but it’s the first win she’s had in a while.

When the sun begins to dip below the horizon, casting an orange glow over the town, and inviting the shadows out to play, Lena scouts out a place to stay for the night. The three-story, dark brick building next to the park, is what she decides on. The building’s windows and doors on the first floor have all been barricaded shut, but with some help from a dumpster in the alley, Lena’s able to jump and pull the fire escape ladder down, and sneak in through one of the busted windows on the third floor.

The apartment’s small, so she’s able to do a sweep of the place in under a minute. It’s pretty bare-bones, most of the furniture is beaten up, and there’s nothing of use anywhere inside, but sleeping in the apartment definitely beats abandoned cars on the road.

She sits out on the fire escape and watches the sunset, enjoys the breeze that passes through, making her forget about the sheen of sweat on her body for just a few minutes. She can see a few walkers stumbling around in the park across the road, hear a few more nearby, but Lena knows she’s safe tonight. She can worry about that tomorrow.

~

A decent night’s sleep is hard to come by these days, and Lena frequently finds herself waking up periodically throughout the night. So, when she wakes up on the tattered couch in the apartment in the early hours of the morning, she’s not at all surprised. It’s normal at this point.

She’s just closing her eyes again when a noise outside catches her attention. There’s a sharp _clang_ followed quickly by a whispered curse.

Someone else is here.

Lena’s up on her feet, reaching for her baseball bat, and sneaking over to the busted window, in a matter of seconds. She creeps out onto the fire escape and uses the moonlight to peer down at the person trying to force their way through the steel door Lena tried pushing her way through earlier. She can’t see much of the person from her position, only that they’ve got their hair tied back in a ponytail and a baseball cap pulled low over their face. Lena briefly entertains the idea of just leaving. She’s tired and has no real desire to deal with a stranger right now. She could quite easily sneak out of the apartment before the person even has a chance to find a way into the building. Then there’s another sound that catches her attention.

Gurgling, and lots of it too. Walkers.

“Shit,” Lena says under her breath, because now she almost has to help the person.

The gurgling grows closer.

“Fuck.” Lena shakes her head, tries to convince herself that helping this person is stupid and reckless and will most certainly result in her death. “Are you armed?” she calls out, because she knows she’d never be able to live with herself if she didn’t try to help this person.

The person takes a few steps back from the door and looks up. “Hello?”

The voice is familiar, but there are more pressing matters right now, so Lena doesn’t overthink it. “Are you armed?”

“No.”

Lena climbs down to the lowest platform on the fire escape and pushes the ladder down. “Hurry, use the dumpster to climb up.”

The woman does just that and follows Lena up the fire escape and into the apartment.

“Thanks. I thought for sure I was a goner there,” the woman says, and now Lena knows why the voice was familiar.

“Kara?”

“Yes?” Kara cocks her head to the side and takes a few steps towards Lena, and then her face goes from confusion to genuine excitement. “Oh, hey! You’re the woman from the woods.”

Kara goes in for a handshake, but Lena ignores it and fixes her with a steely glare. “You’re following me.”

“What?! No, I’m not.”

“Then how’d you find me?”

“Dumb luck?”

Lena crosses her arms over her chest.

“I swear, I wasn’t following you. This is just some, I dunno…” Kara gestures widely with her hands, searching for an answer.

“Coincidence?”

“Yeah! Crazy how the world works, huh?”

“Yeah, crazy,” Lena says, studying Kara. “What happened to your stuff?”

“I lost it.”

“Lost it?”

“Yeah. I had a little camp set up a few miles from here. I thought it’d be safe for a night; clearly, I was wrong, ‘cause a dozen or so walkers found me, so I had to bolt.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Kara shrugs. “Shit happens.”

Lena quirks her head, considers Kara’s answer for a moment, and tries to understand how she can be so— so— so _relaxed_.

“Hey, I just realised I don’t know your name.” Kara smiles, warm and sweet and _open_. She even hooks her thumbs through the belt loops on her ratty cargo shorts, and Lena has to push an intrusive thought from her mind, because this is definitely not the time to be thinking about how hot that looks.

“I’m not telling you my name.”

“Why not? You saved my life. Seems only fair that I name my firstborn child after you.”

Lena rolls her eyes but can’t do much to stop the small upward quirk of her lips. “Don’t make this weird.”

“Right.” Kara nods and swallows. “Sorry.”

A pregnant pause hangs in the room, broken only by the horde of walkers now gathered outside.

Lena clears her throat. “Look, normally this is where I’d tell you to leave, but you’ll last no more than ten minutes out there without your stuff, so if you want, you can stay here tonight, and then we can go our separate ways in the morning.”

“Thanks.”

They get settled in—Lena stretched out on the couch, and Kara on the lounge chair on the other side of the room, feet kicked up on an old milkcrate.

“I still don’t know your name,” Kara says later, her voice quiet and serious.

Lena doesn’t answer right away, briefly considers not answering at all, and simply closing her eyes and letting sleep pull her under. Instead, because maybe there’s some small part of her that feels compelled to answer Kara, she says, “Does it matter?”

Kara doesn’t respond.

~

Lena doesn’t sleep. She spends the entire night wide-awake, staring up at the ceiling, and mentally preparing what she’d do if Kara decides to turn on her in the middle of the night. Of course, Kara doesn’t. She’s dead to the world for most of the night, only occasionally muttering gibberish.

When morning comes, Lena packs what she needs into her bag, and careful to not draw the attention of the horde of walkers a few blocks away, her and Kara climb down the fire escape and stand awkwardly in the alleyway.

“There’s a pharmacy and corner store a few blocks down the street if you want to restock. There wasn’t much, but you might be able to find something useful,” Lena says.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll try my luck heading back to my camp and seeing if I can salvage anything. I’m hoping my bow’s still there.”

“Well, goodbye then.”

“Bye.”

Lena starts walking up the street, and then—because of-fucking-course—Kara does too.

“What’re you doing?”

“Going to my camp.”

“And your camp is this way?” Lena hooks her thumb over her shoulder. “Which just so happens to be the same way I’m heading.”

“I swear, I’m not following you. The world’s just—”

“Crazy, I know.”

Kara cracks a smile that just says, _sorry, please don’t be mad_.

They walk together up the street, eventually leaving the town and a dense forest on either side. Even when they pass a few roads branching off in other directions, they’re still walking together.

“So, what’d you do before?” Kara says, her voice hesitant.

Lena looks over at Kara as they walk, eyes narrowed as she tries to figure out Kara’s end game here.

“I’m just trying to make conversation,” Kara hastens to explain. “Here, I’ll even go first. I used to be a reporter in National City.” Kara waits for Lena to respond, but when nothing comes, she clicks her tongue and says, “If conversation isn’t your thing, that’s fine. We can play a game of I Spy.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

They play I Spy, and it’s actually fun. Not that Lena will ever admit that. She’s perfectly content to be by herself and find ways to amuse herself. But still, walking with Kara, playing dumb games with Kara… it’s nice.

“This is me,” Kara says, suddenly stopping by the side of the road.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Kara nods, eyes a little downcast. “Thanks for letting me stay with you last night. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s fine,” Lena says, and she says it with a small smile, so Kara knows that she means it. “Goodbye, Kara.”

Kara offers one last smile and a quick wave before she turns and disappears in the woods. This is where Lena should leave. She knows this. Leaving now is rational and would ensure that she’d get to the next town before sunset. And Lena knows there’s no guarantee that Kara will come back up to the road, but still, in the chance that she does, maybe Lena should stick around to make sure that she’s able to get her stuff. Make sure that she’s okay.

It’s fifteen minutes of waiting, Lena guesses, and she’s thinking of leaving now because it looks like Kara isn’t coming back up to the road. That shouldn’t make her as disappointed as it does. But then there’s rustling and Lena can hear twigs snapping. Her grip on her baseball bat tightens a little—it’s reflex at this point. Then there’s a _thud_ , followed by a muffled curse, and more rustling. Definitely not a walker, and when the person emerges from the woods, covered in leaves and dirt, Lena’s grip loosens.

Kara brushes leaves from her hair as she stumbles back up to the road, and when she sees Lena standing there, she quirks her head, and says, “You waited?”

Lena shrugs like it’s nothing.

“Why?” Her lips curl upward, voice daring to hope.

“I wanted to make sure you got your stuff. It’d be pretty shitty of me to leave you if you had no way of defending yourself.”

“I could have managed.” Kara doesn’t say it with arrogance, rather with amusement, like she knows the real reason Lena waited.

“I’m sure.” Lena nods to the bow. “You look very capable.”

Kara smiles like she’s proud as she adjusts the bow slung over her shoulder.

“You said you were heading west?” Lena ventures a moment later.

“Yeah.”

“I am too, so…” Lena gestures to the road.

Kara beams and Lena thinks that alone might just make this risk worth it.

~

They don’t talk about the real stuff: the stuff that _means something_ , y’know? They pass the hours of walking with games of I Spy, spend the nights before falling into broken sleep making polite small talk, and let long moments of silence stretch between them when there’s nothing left to say. And it’s in one of these long pauses that they finally—after weeks of walking together, of _surviving_ together—talk about something real.

“Why are you heading west?” Kara asks as they walk through yet another deserted town. She kicks a small pebble along the road, watches it skip across the asphalt as she waits for Lena to respond.

“I don’t know,” Lena says in a moment of genuine honesty. “Easier to walk with a destination in mind, I guess.”

Kara hums like she understands the empty feeling of wandering with no end in mind.

“You?”

“Looking for someone,” Kara says, tipping her head back to look up at the sun that isn’t quite as harsh anymore. Summer must be near its end. “My sister,” she adds. “Wanna stop for a bit and have something to eat?”

“Sure.”

They stop at a place that used to be a café—the sign above the door reading ‘Coffee Bloom.’ They check for walkers first, then dust off one of the tables by a window and drag two mismatched chairs over. It’s the closest Lena’s gotten to normal in years.

“Where were you when everything started?” Kara asks a few moments later.

Lena hesitates for a moment, picks at her food, and thinks of deflecting the question. But then Kara looks at her, smiles, and then Lena says, “On my way to the airport in Metropolis. I was due to fly out to National City for work that night. You?”

“At home. My sister’s actually the one who found me and told me what was happening.”

“What happened then? You’re looking for her now, so did you two get separated?”

“Something like that. We got stuck in the National City quarantine zone, back when the government was still around to enforce those kinds of things. We were there for a few years when I heard that Metropolis was doing a lot better. There were even rumours of a cure.”

Lena smiles ruefully at that, because she remembers those days too: the days where they still had hope.

“I also had a cousin there, and I wanted to try find him,” Kara continues. “I told Alex we should go to Metropolis, but she said we’d be safer in National City. We got into a pretty big fight about it, and both said some horrible things. So, I just left one night. Didn’t even say goodbye.”

Lena doesn’t say anything, not quite sure what to say. _Sorry_ isn’t enough and just feels empty now, and _I understand_ is almost implied these days.

“Sorry,” Kara says, seeming to think that she’s shared too much. “I, uh, I shouldn’t’ve—”

“No, no. Don’t apologise.” Lena reaches across the table to place a hand on Kara’s arm to stop her from pulling away. She’s not sure why she does that, certainly knows that she shouldn’t, because there’s no way this ends well. She clears her throat and pulls her hand away, putting some distance between them. “Did you find your cousin?”

“No. By the time I got to Metropolis, it’d been overrun. There was no way for me to get into the city.” Kara pauses for a moment, and then, curious, she asks, “How long were you there for after… everything?”

“Four years.”

“Were you alone?”

It’s a loaded question, and Lena knows curiosity is Kara’s only intent, but that doesn’t make remembering any easier. “For a little bit.”

Kara quirks her head, silently urging Lena on as she eats a piece of jerky.

“I met a mother and daughter three years in. A group of hunters had traps set throughout the city, and I was able to warn them before they wandered too far in. We stuck together after that.”

When Lena meets Kara’s gaze, she can see the question written clear as day in her blue eyes. But Kara doesn’t ask what happened, and Lena is so glad for that. She’s not sure what she’d say, probably something along the lines of, _We got separated, so I’m assuming that they’re dead, because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do these days?_ It’s probably good that she doesn’t get to say that though, because Kara’s looking for a sister, and hearing that ‘dead’ is the standard assumption when you haven’t seen someone in a while, is definitely counter-intuitive.

“Do you ever think you’ll just pick a place and settle?” Kara asks, instead.

“Maybe. I think I’d get bored, though.”

Kara hums, and Lena thinks that hum sounds a lot like the hum of someone who understands. Maybe she does understand. “You could get a hobby,” she says a moment later, “like sketching.”

Lena laughs, and it’s the first time she’s done that in a while. “ _You_ can sketch. I’ve seen you drawing in that little notebook. I, on the other hand, cannot sketch.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

Lena smirks and raises an eyebrow, as though daring for a challenge. “I assure you; it is.”

Kara hums, a little smirk that Lena can’t quite decipher, spreading across her face. “I still don’t know your name,” she says, a hopeful smile replacing the smirk.

“I know,” Lena says, the amusement gone from her voice, and her smile a little sad as she makes a point to avoid Kara’s gaze, because some small part of her knows that if she looks at Kara, she’ll crack, and she can’t do that. It’s one thing to share stories about a life that’s gone and hopes for a life that will never come, but it’s another thing to share a name. Sharing a name makes the person real. Makes the inevitable loss real. “We should keep moving. It’ll be dark soon, and we’re running low on supplies.”

~

Lena’s been keeping track of the date since day one. She’s had some issues with it along the way, but when she and Kara stumble across a mall, she’s almost certain they’ve only got a few days of summer left.

“Wanna have a look?” Kara says, nodding her head to the looming building, one of those challenging smirks on her face.

Lena likes those smirks. Likes what usually comes when Kara smiles like that. It usually means something fun—something to distract from the monotony and dismay of their days. One time it was swimming in a lake they passed, because _it’s summer and we should enjoy it_. Another time it was touring some small little museum—that was obviously once a tourist trap—in one of the towns they passed through, because _technically we’re tourists, and I really wanna learn about different types of soil_.

“I could do with a new pair of shoes and a jacket,” Lena muses, hiding her smirk.

Kara rolls her eyes and nudges Lena’s shoulder with her own. “C’mon, don’t be so pragmatic! Think of all the fun we could have in _a mall_.”

They manage to squeeze their way in through the front entrance, and Kara drags Lena to just about every store that looks remotely interesting. There’s the costume store where Kara tries on a superhero custom, with a blue top, and red skirt and boots, and insists that she’d make a great hero; a sports equipment store where they play with the field hockey gear on display, and Kara tries to show off her “mad soccer skills,” but really just succeeds in making Lena laugh; and a toy store where they quickly seize two nerf guns and engage in a full-fledged nerf war.

It’s fun. A lot of fun, actually. So much so, that Lena momentarily forgets about their situation. Forgets that they need to be vigilant about where they walk. Forgets that they probably aren’t alone right now.

They turn a corner and are instantly met with five walkers wandering around. However, as soon as they walkers spot them, they gurgle and lunge towards Kara and Lena. And there’s only five of them, between the two of them, they’d be able to take them out, but it seems that the commotion caused by those five walkers sprinting across the linoleum, draws the attention of another group of walkers lurking just inside a storefront. So now there’s eleven, maybe thirteen walkers scrambling after them, which means there’s only one thing Kara and Lena can do: run.

Lena grabs Kara’s hand and pulls her along. They don’t have many options though, because, with all the commotion, it seems to have brought out all the other walkers who had been lurking in the shadows. Lena, thinking only of their immediate survival, makes a split-second decision and pulls them down a service corridor and then into a small bathroom.

They slam the door shut and lock it. It’s thicker than most doors, but definitely not thick enough to keep the small horde of walkers out for long.

“Shit,” Lena curses, running her hands through her hair and yanking at the roots. “Fuck fuck fuck.” She drops against the wall and slides to the floor.

Kara, after a moment, squats down beside her. She rummages through her bag and pulls out a hand-cranked flashlight, so they aren’t sitting in complete darkness. “How long do you think the door will hold?” she asks.

“Probably not long. There were a lot of them.” And as if to prove Lena’s point, the walkers on the other side of the door, gurgle and screech as they try to break the door down.

Lena does a quick scan of the small bathroom, and when she doesn’t see any other way out—not even an air vent or small window—fishes around in her knapsack until she’s got what she was looking for. The bottle of rum she found some time ago, still unopened, which is probably some kind of miracle. She takes the lid off, sniffs it, and then takes a healthy swig. “Here.” She offers the bottle to Kara.

“What’s this for?” Kara takes the bottle as she sits down beside Lena against the wall.

“I was saving it,” Lena explains, gaze dropping to the small crack between the floor and door, watching the shifting shadows of the walkers as they try to break their way in.

“For what?” Kara takes a sip and grimaces as the briny liquid moves down her throat, before she passes the bottle back to Lena.

“Special occasion.” Lena takes another mouthful and sets the bottle on the floor. “We’re going to die in here. Figured that’s about as special as something can get.”

Kara laughs, empty and tired, and then she takes another sip of the rum. “Guess we are gonna die in here, huh?”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later. We’re not immune. No one is.”

Kara’s answering hum is non-committal.

Lena turns her head to face Kara, and then, barely audible, she says, “Ask me again.”

“Hmm?”

“Ask me again,” she repeats. “My name. Ask me again.”

Kara faces Lena now, eyebrows furrowed together, but there’s a small trace of a hopeful smile on her face. “What’s your name?” she says, and even though there are more than a dozen walkers just on the other side of that door trying to break their way in, it’s like the rest of the world has fallen away.

“Lena.”

“Hi, Lena.”

“Hi, Kara.”

They hold each other’s gaze for a moment too long; the air between them crackles with… _something_. Maybe it’s hope. The space between them is small, almost irrelevant, they could just lean in and—

The hand-cranked flashlight turns off, and Lena clears her throat as she looks away, the rest of the world screaming back into focus. “You should, um…” She gestures vaguely to the flashlight.

“Right, yeah.” Kara’s voice comes out shaky as she powers up the flashlight again.

“To dying,” Lena says once they have light again. She raises the bottle, takes a sip, and passes it to Kara.

“To dying,” Kara echoes, her gaze lingering on Lena for another moment, before she takes a sip too.

And then they wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: [@just-some-girlll](https://just-some-girlll.tumblr.com/)


	3. autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the positive feedback on the first two chapters :)

Lena’s okay with dying—has been for a long time. It’s one of those things that you have to be okay with now; that’s not to say that you should be reckless or live without hope. The whole Having Hope Thing is harder for Lena to grasp, so she puts her energy into not being reckless. It only takes one mistake for everything to end, and she’ll be pissed if her own stupidity is the reason she dies.

But she’s okay with dying. She’s honestly surprised she managed to last this long. Seven years is a good run, and even though she blames herself for their current situation, it’s not all bad. If she has to die, she’s sort of glad it’s with Kara.

Lena doesn’t think the door will hold out for much longer, and they’ve still got two-thirds of the bottle of rum left. She’s half-way inclined to just say _fuck it_ , and scull what’s left. She’d definitely pass out before the walkers have a chance to get in, maybe even die, but then she’d be leaving Kara to die alone. That would just be cruel.

Except, death doesn’t come. Lena can hear muffled shouts over the walkers’ gurgling, then there are shots being fired, and then there’s just nothing.

Kara and Lena share a look, equal parts confusion, awe, and fear. Lena scrambles to her feet and presses her ear to the door.

“Should we have a look?” Kara says.

Lena shrugs. They’ve got nothing to lose at this point. She opens the door, and they step out of the bathroom. There are two men standing in front of them, both armed with a hunting rifle.

“Oh my god,” Kara says.

Lena doesn’t have a chance to ask what’s wrong, because Kara runs past her and pulls one of the men into a tight embrace.

“You’re alive. I can’t believe you’re alive,” Kara says, her words coming out fast. She pulls back from the hug to look at the man properly. He’s got dark hair, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and a smile that’s hardened with years of pain.

“Kara?” The man says as though he doesn’t quite believe it.

“Yeah, Clark. It’s me.” Kara nods fast and smiles wide.

Clark pulls Kara into another hug, finally seeming to relax. They pull apart when the other man clears his throat.

“Right, sorry. James, this is my cousin Kara. Kara, this is James.”

Kara offers him a smile and short wave and then she introduces Lena. “Lois?” She asks once introductions are had.

Clark smiles. “She’s fine. She’s out on a supply run right now.”

“Good, good.”

“I thought you were dead. We all did,” Clark says a moment later, his confession hanging heavy in the air. “Alex and I— we spent a long time looking for you.”

“Alex? You’ve seen Alex?” Kara asks, sounding almost desperate.

Clark smiles and nods. “We have a small town set up a few miles from here. She’s been there for a few years now. She helps us run it.”

The smile that spreads across Kara’s face is nothing short of heartbreaking. Kara’s happy, Lena can see that clear as day, but there’s pain beneath the smile. Lena’s fingers itch to reach out and take Kara’s hand. She doesn’t.

~

The walk to the town is awkward, to say the least. Kara’s too caught up in her thoughts to notice it, let alone say something; Lena has no idea what to say to fill the gaping void of silence; and Clark and James seem wary of Lena, which Lena can’t really fault them for. She’s a stranger to them, she wouldn’t trust her either.

Clark is right though, the walk to the town isn’t far—two, maybe three miles at the most. The only reason Lena and Kara hadn’t spotted it earlier is because of the forest that surrounds it. They walk past one of those signs that tells them they’re now entering the town limits, and whatever name the town once had has been painted over with a layer of heavy black paint. Lena wonders if the town has a name now.

They pass through an armed gate and walk up, what Lena guesses, is the main street.

“We’ve got electricity,” Clark says, gesturing vaguely to a few buildings they pass.

Kara hums, not really listening, too focused on scanning the faces of people on the street.

“Generators?” Lena asks.

“Hydroelectricity,” James supplies. “There’s a station not too far from here. We’ve got some smart people living here, and they were able to fix it up so we could power the town. We even have movie nights once week in the community centre.”

“Where’s Alex?” Kara asks.

Clark points to a red brick building a little further up the street. It’s one level, a little weathered on the outside, but looks like it’s been maintained these last few years. Lena guesses it was probably once the townhall, and she can see a few people standing on the front steps. It’s hard to make out much of the people from this far away, but clearly, it’s enough for Kara because a moment later, she’s running up the street, bag jostling on her back.

Lena follows after Kara from a distance, and then she watches Kara throw herself at one of the women standing on the steps. They both collapse to the ground and the woman seems annoyed about that, but Kara doesn’t really look like she cares.

When Lena catches up, all she can hear Kara says is, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for leaving.”

“What the—” the woman says, trying to push herself into a seated position. A few people nearby help the woman up and Lena helps Kara to her feet.

Once the woman is standing and after she’s dusted herself off, she spins on Kara, clearly ready to chew her out. But she stops herself, her eyes going wide, and jaw going slack.

“Hi,” Kara says, her smile hesitant.

“Kara.”

Kara nods, her smile widening just a bit, daring to hope.

“Kara,” she says again, this time taking a few steps closer, and poking Kara’s shoulder. “You’re alive.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re alive.” The woman repeats, and then she pulls Kara into a fierce hug. “You’re alive. I can’t believe you’re alive. I thought, well…” They separate and the unsaid words hang heavy in the air. “Mom’s gonna be so glad you’re alive.”

“Eliza’s here?”

Alex nods, smiling wide. “Yeah, she helps us run the clinic. How’s your arm? Any… changes?”

Lena doesn’t miss the way that Kara glances at her before looking back at the woman and nodding her head. “Fine. We can talk about that later. Right now, I’d like you to meet Lena,” Kara says, gesturing Lena forward. “Alex, this is Lena. She’s been kind enough to let me keep her company these last few months.”

Alex’s gaze shifts over to Lena and she seems to regard her for a moment. “Well, thank you, Lena, for keeping an eye on my sister.”

“Not a problem. It’s been nice having her around.” Lena surprises herself when she admits that last part. She doesn’t see the small smile that blooms across Kara’s face at the comment. Alex sees it though and she shoots her sister one of those confused smiles that says something akin to _what’s wrong with your face?_

Kara flips Alex off when Lena isn’t looking.

“Kara?” A different voice this time, and when Lena turns around, there’s a woman standing there looking shocked and confused but most of all, she looks happy.

“Eliza.” Kara runs up to the woman and hugs her tightly, just as tightly as she’d hugged Alex before.

“You’re here… You’re alive,” The woman— Eliza, Lena corrects, sinks into the hug and strokes the back of Kara’s head the way a mother would, the way only a mother _could_. And then, much to Lena’s surprise, when they separate, Eliza smacks Kara’s shoulder. “Alex told me what you did! What were you thinking leaving like that in the middle of the night? No note. Not even a goodbye. She’s your sister. We thought you were _dead_.”

Kara doesn’t once try arguing back, she just stands there with the biggest smile on her face, and Lena can’t help but think of what a big sap Kara is.

“This is not funny.”

“I know.” But still, Kara’s smiling and that seems to be what finally breaks Eliza resolve.

“I’m just really glad you’re okay.”

“Me too, and we can actually thank Lena for that.” Kara gestures to Lena and motions her forward. “She saved me a few months ago and was nice enough to let me keep her company.”

“Well, thank you, Lena,” Eliza says, offering Lena a genuine and sincere smile.

Lena laughs, a little uncomfortable with the praise. “It’s not a problem. She’s actually made walking all day actually fun.”

“I’m glad. And I am sorry to do this, but I’m giving a first-aid course to some kids in about five minutes, so I have to go. I’ll see you both later.”

Once Eliza is gone, Alex speaks up. “There’s also someone I want you to meet,” she says, gesturing to the woman now standing beside her. “Kara, this is my wife Kelly.”

“Wife. You’re married?”

Alex nods and she seems… nervous, Lena thinks.

“That’s great!” Kara smiles. “It’s so great to meet you.”

Alex and Kelly both seem to release a long-held breath and now they’re both smiling along with Kara.

“Likewise,” Kelly says.

“And this is Lena,” Kara says, “she lets me keep her company.”

“I’m also sixty percent of your impulse control,” Lena says with a smile causing laughter to erupt from the group. She decides to ignore the small piece of her saying _this won’t last_ , and focus instead on the fact that Kara looks more carefree now than she has in the short time they’ve known each other.

~

There are more introductions and happy reunions later. There’s Lois, and Kara looks nothing short of elated that she’s okay too. Then they meet Cat Grant who oversees the committee of food distribution in the town, Lucy who runs a small bar, J’onn who oversees patrols of the perimeter, and Nia and Brainy who do supply runs. Also, the town does have a name, Lena finds out. Smallville.

“A lot of people here came from Smallville after it was overrun,” Clark explains as he leads Kara and Lena up the main street. “We thought that if the town had the same name it might make it easier to pretend that everything’s… well, you know.”

Lena hums because she does know, knows that it’s easier to pretend that things aren’t as bad as they actually are when there’s some familiarity. Kara seems to understand that too.

“We mostly did it for the kids,” Clark continues. “We figured that even though the town looked different, if the name was the same then they’d find it easier to adjust. Most of those kids are teenagers now, so pretending doesn’t matter much anymore, but the name just sorta stuck around.

“Anyway, you two can stay here,” Clark gestures to a small block of motel rooms. “It’s where we house new residents until we can find something more permanent. It’s not perfect but it’s something. No one’s staying here now, so, just pick some rooms and get settled in. I’ve got some work I need to get done, but I’m sure Alex’ll be by soon.” He waves goodbye and then disappears down the street.

~

The days fall together after that, one after another like dominos in a line. Kara seems to settle in just fine, and Lena’s happy for her. They both do patrol and supply runs together, and Lena enjoys that because it’s just the two of them and it reminds her of how they used to be. She feels crowded walking around the town, and she knows she shouldn’t because Kelly once told her that there are only sixty-three people living in the town. And it’s complicated too. Walking down a deserted street with Kara and no real destination was simple and easy and even a little bit fun. There were no expectations.

But the weeks drag by, and even though Alex says they’ve got two empty apartments above an old deli, Lena stays at the motel. What surprises her most though, is the fact that Kara chooses to stay too. It’s nice having Kara around, Lena decides, especially late at night. There’s an empty pool at the motel—some of the kids living in the town like to ride their scooters and skateboards in it—and sometimes Kara and Lena sit at the edge of it and dangle their legs over the edge as they talk about nothing in particular.

The nights are colder now, so instead of sitting by the empty pool, they sit on the floor of one of their rooms and play whatever boardgame they can get their hands on from the rec centre. Tonight, they’re playing Risk.

“Remind me to try find a new set of this game the next time we go on a supply run to a mall or something,” Kara says as she moves more of her pieces across the board.

“You’re only saying that because this set is missing the blue pieces.”

“It’s my lucky colour!”

“You’re ridiculous.” Lena makes her move and succeeds in taking more territory from Kara.

“See! That wouldn’t have happened if I’d been playing with the blue pieces.” Kara gives her yellow pieces a dirty look.

Lena laughs. “It’s probability. The odds were in my favour.”

Kara grumbles as she makes her move. A moment later, once Lena begins her turn, Kara says, “I was thinking—”

“Be careful with that.”

Kara rolls her eyes but pushes on. “ _I was thinking_ that maybe we could move out of the motel.”

Lena stills.

“There’s this house just on the outside of town. It needs some TLC, but the bones are good and it’s in a really great spot. I spoke to Alex about it and she said they hadn’t planned to do anything with it. So, I thought, if you want, we could fix it up together.”

“I, um… why?”

“I thought it might be nice. I like it when it’s just you and me. It feels… right, I guess. Sorry, was that too much? I just wanted to be honest, y’know? No pressure at all. If you don’t want to that’s fine; I understand. And you don’t have to answer now. Think about it if you want.”

“Yeah, uh, I will.”

Kara smiles one of those endearingly sweet smiles where her nose scrunches, and Lena feels her heart ache because she knows how this all ends. Their night continues and they don’t talk about the house again at all.

~

The end of autumn comes sooner than Lena excepts. There’s more to do now with winter’s imminent arrival: making sure everyone has enough warm clothes, preparing for heavy snow, and checking through the community food stock. But tonight, anyone not on patrol or watching their kids, is relaxing at Lucy’s bar before everything gets a little bit harder for a while.

Lena’s decision to leave is made as soon as she steps into the bar, and it’s not because of anything Kara did. That could never be the case. Kara is funny and sweet and kind. She has this really special way of looking at you that makes you feel like the only person in the world. It makes Lena feel warm and that’s exactly why she has to leave. Because she is none of the things Kara is and she knows better than to get close to someone again.

Getting attached only makes surviving harder when it inevitably all falls apart.

So, the decision to leave is made because when Lena glances over at the bar she can see Kara and Alex bickering the way sisters do, and the last thing she wants to do is ruin what Kara spent so long trying to find. She’s just getting ready to turn around and leave when Kelly spots her from a booth and waves her over. Lena is many things, but rude is not one of them. She plasters on a smile that she hopes rings as true and makes her way over to Kelly.

“I wondered if we’d be seeing you tonight,” Kelly says with a genuine smile as Lena slides into the booth across from her. “I think Kara was beginning to worry you wouldn’t be coming.”

Lena glances back over at Kara.

“You doing okay?” Kelly asks in an inquisitive yet friendly tone.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just tired I think.”

Kelly nods, seeming to know something Lena doesn’t want her to know. “It’s normal, you know.”

“What is?”

“The adjustment period.” Kelly leans forward a bit. “A lot of people find it hard to adjust to being here after being out there for so long. It took me a while to feel safe again, much less getting used to it. Everyone in here will say the same thing. So, if you need someone to talk to, or you just want someone to listen, I’m here, okay?”

“Okay.” It’s a lie, and Lena can’t quiet tell if Kelly believes it or not. But she shouldn’t care if Kelly believes it or not, and the fact that she does is exactly why she has to leave. She’s getting attached when she knows she shouldn’t because this—feeling safe, having a home, having _people_ —can’t last, it won’t last. It never does.

“You made it!” It’s Kara’s voice that pulls Lena from her thoughts.

Alex slides into the booth beside Kelly and drapes her arm over her shoulder. Kelly reaches up for Alex’s hand dangling over her shoulder and fiddles with the gold band on her finger. Lena’s pretty sure Kelly doesn’t even know she’s doing it. It’s sweet and— she’s doing it again: getting attached to people she has to leave.

Lena clears her throat and looks over at Kara who’s now beside her and reaching for one of the glasses of water on the table. “Yeah, well, I figured someone has to keep your ego in check.” She nods to a table near the back where a few people are playing Texas hold ‘em.

“You reckon you can take me?” Kara’s grin is crooked and endearing and Lena knows she shouldn’t be thinking that.

“It’s basic math, and in case you’ve forgotten, I’m somewhat of a genius.”

That gets a round of applause and cheers from Alex and Kelly, and now Kara is looking at her like… actually, she doesn’t know. She’s still got that grin that isn’t so annoying anymore, but there’s a glint in her eyes, and Lena has no idea what that means.

She’s also very aware that she’s doing what she told herself she wasn’t going to do. She’s letting her guard down and getting close to these people. These people who she’s going to leave because it’s easier to leave than it is to be left. But fuck it. Kara’s grinning at her, and Alex and Kelly are cheering her on. She can rip the band-aid off tomorrow.

“Unless you’re too scared,” Lena challenges with a smirk.

Kara’s eyes narrow, and now she’s got a smirk of her own. “You’re on. Alex? Kelly?”

“No thank you. I’m staying out of this,” Kelly says with a laugh.

“Me too. You two go nuts.”

Kara and Lena leave the booth and move to the back of the bar where they claim two seats at the table. J’onn’s picking at the bowl of sunflower seeds on the table, Cat’s gathering the discarded cards, and James is counting his chips—they don’t hold any monetary value, but it’s fun to pretend.

“Finally come to play with us, Lena,” Cat says, making a show of doing a riffle shuffle.

“Figured I’d have a go.”

Cat deals everyone two cards and then the game begins. Lena doesn’t have a great hand to begin with—a three and a nine, both spades—but when she sees Kara raise the bet by two and wink at her as she does, she decides to just bluff her way through. Her hand doesn’t improve by much after the flop—now she’s got a pair of threes. No one folds and the bet isn’t increased. Another card is flipped onto the table, it’s a nine, and now Lena’s feeling a little more confident. She raises the bet by two, and Kara and James match it while Cat and J’onn fold. The final card is shown and it’s another nine. She’s got a full house, and with the five cards face up on the table, she knows there’s no way she can lose. Lena raises the bet again. James folds and takes a handful of sunflower seeds as he watches the last part of the game unfold.

“What’s it gonna be, Kara?” James says.

Kara checks her cards again and thinks for a moment. She glances over at Lena, eyes slightly narrowed and a smirk on her face. Just as it looks like she’s about to toss two more chips into the jackpot, she says, “I’m out,” and tosses her cards facedown onto the table.

“Well played everyone.” Lena gathers the assortment of chips from the centre of the table and stacks them neatly in front of her.

The night carries on like that for a while. They all win and lose their fair share of hands. J’onn is the first to call it night, citing an early morning patrol as the reason, James leaves the table a little while later, wishing everyone a good night, and then it’s just Kara, Lena, and Cat left sitting at the table.

“I need a break. Give me five minutes and I’ll be back to clean you ladies out,” Cat says as she grabs her coat. “And I’ve counted my chips, so don’t even think about stealing from me.” She fixes each of them, mainly Kara, with a steely glare that’s not at all serious.

“I think I might go,” Lena says a few moments later.

“You sure?

“Yeah.” She stands up and gathers her coat from the back of the chair.

“I’ll walk you out.” Kara jumps up from her seat.

“You really don’t have to.”

“It’s fine. I’m already up anyway.”

They walk out together, not saying anything, and once they’re out on the quiet street, Lena turns to Kara and says, “Thanks for tonight. It was fun.”

“Thank _you_ for coming. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

A gust of wind blows through the street and Lena suddenly realises just how close they’re actually standing. It’s a lot like that moment they had in the bathroom all those months ago. Only this time, there isn’t a horde of walkers trying to break down the door. They’re safe. They could just lean in and break whatever tension has been simmering between them for months now. They could lean in and it could be simple and complicated but really fucking nice. And—

Kara’s kissing her. Someone must have leant in and Lena wonders who, but then she doesn’t really care because Kara’s kissing her and she’s kissing Kara and it's actually really nice. Kara tastes like the jerky Lena always sees her eat, and smells like something Lena can only attribute to home. Then Kara’s arms are around Lena’s waist, and they’re solid and warm and Lena wants so badly to sink into the contact. To just let go and sink into _this_. But she can’t, because it’ll all go wrong—it always does—and then where will Lena be? Alone, hurt, and telling herself _I told you so_ over and over until she finally learns.

Lena pushes Kara away. “No, I, uh, I can’t. Sorry. For everything.” She turns and hurries up the street towards the motel. She hears Kara call out to her, but she doesn’t once stop or look back.

Kara watches Lena leave and when she turns around to head back inside, sees Cat leaning against the short retaining wall with a cigarette between her middle and forefinger.

“Sit with me for a bit,” Cat says.

“I’d really rather just go back inside.”

“Kara, sit with me,” she repeats a little more forceful but no less friendly.

Kara huffs and does. “How much of that did you see?”

“Enough. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“That’s fine. But there’s something I want you to hear, so you can sit and listen, and once I’m done, we can go back inside, finish our game, and act like we never had this conversation, okay?”

Kara nods.

“Lena’s been hurt her entire life; it doesn’t take a professional to see that. It’s also obvious that she likes you a lot, and I’m aware that doesn’t seem like the case given what just happened, but she does. She’s probably only just now realising how much she cares about you. So, she’s scared because she doesn’t want to open up to someone when all her life, she’s been hurt for trusting.”

“I would never—”

“I know you wouldn’t, and I’m sure deep-down Lena knows that too. But it takes time to unlearn behaviour that’s only ever kept us safe. So, don’t rush her, show her that she can trust you, and be there for her in the way she wants.”

They sit in silence for a moment. A breeze whistles down the street and picks up a few leaves as it does. Cat takes one last drag of her cigarette then stubs it out against the retaining wall. She tosses it into the small sand filled tray at her feet.

“Come on, I’ll play one more hand with you. Winner takes all,” Cat says as she gets ready to go back inside.

“Yeah, sure.” Kara nods and jumps down from the retaining wall, following Cat inside.

~

Lena doesn’t take much when she packs her knapsack. She’s got a toothbrush, enough food to last her a few days until she finds someplace to scavenge, a map, and a few other essentials. She writes a short note addressed to Kara and leaves it on the dresser. Then she grabs her baseball bat from beside the door and leaves.

It takes a little bit of work to get across the wall without being noticed, but she’s spent enough time patrolling it to know where the best spots to jump over are. Lena ignores the heavy weight that sits on her heart once she’s over the wall and walking away from the town. She’ll get over it eventually, and when she does, she’ll realise that leaving was the smartest thing she could have done.

~

It’s a repetitive cycle that Lena finds herself in once she’s on her own again. She wakes up. Walks. Searches for resources. Walks some more. Eats. Then sleeps. She marks Smallville on her map one night. Maybe part of her thinks she’ll go back, maybe part of her _wants_ to go back. But the other part of her, the rational part, knows that she shouldn’t, that she won’t. There’s no point in getting attached to something she’ll just lose later anyway. She’s been burnt too many times before. She knows better.

And so, she wakes up. Walks. Searches for resources. Walks some more. Eats. Then sleeps. Lena’s not too sure when her days started feeling quiet again; she doubts it really matters anyway, because she’s here and Kara’s not, and the silence isn’t so bearable anymore. The silence lays thick on her skin like poison, seeping into her blood, and wrapping her in a near suffocating embrace.

She’s too cold and too hot all at once. Clawing at her layers, Lena peels them off until she’s sitting in the middle of the interstate, sun setting behind her, in just jeans and a tank top. She shivers as an icy breeze passes through, and Lena knows the plummeting temperatures have nothing to do with why she’s so cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: [@just-some-girlll](https://just-some-girlll.tumblr.com/)


	4. winter

Perhaps now would be a good time to get up, Lena thinks to herself. The sky is going various shades of orange, pink, and purple as the sun sets behind her, and she’s yet to find a place to spend the night. But she sits a while longer, feels the way the icy breeze cuts at her exposed skin, and tries to home in on a sound. Any sound. Just something to make it less quiet. It doesn’t work, obviously. Because she left a good place, good people, and now she’s sitting on the interstate, alone, cold, and numb. And that shouldn’t bother her—it never did before—but it does now. So, why is this time any different?

It’s not different, Lena tells herself. It’s not different, except deep-down she knows that it actually is. It’s different because of Kara. Kara who is unlike anyone she’s met before. Kara who is kind and selfless in a world where those qualities can easily get you killed. Kara who she left without saying a proper goodbye to. Lena hates herself a little bit for that last one.

Lena hears gurgling coming from just beyond the tree line running parallel to the interstate. Walkers. Probably not a lot of them judging by the amount of sound. She’s in no real mood to deal with that right now. So, she picks herself up, quickly tosses her shirt and jacket back on, and continues on down the road.

~

The days carry on, slowly slipping away. Temperatures continue to drop and there’s now a thin dusting of snow on the ground that usually melts away by the time midday rolls around. Lena has a few close calls, and it drives her crazy that she does. She’s a smart and rational thinker. She’s got no distractions now, nothing else to focus on except surviving, and yet she still finds herself making rookie mistakes.

If she were honest with herself, Lena would see that she’s actually more distracted than ever, and the reason for that is pretty fucking obvious. She decides that she’s just tired.

Eventually, Lena comes to a point where she can either turn off and enter a city, or continue following the road she’s on and bypass it altogether. Venturing into the city poses the obvious threat of hunters and hidden hordes of walkers. She’s heard the horror stories about what the cities are like now, hell, she even lived in a city for a short while after the initial outbreak. So, she knows just how bad it is, how dangerous it is. But the city will provide much-needed shelter for the winter that’s about to come. It’ll probably be easier to find food and other essential resources, too.

She turns off and begins walking down an exit ramp that’ll take her towards the city’s centre.

~

Some cities were completely flattened in the years that followed the initial outbreak—the government’s attempt to slow or stop the spread. This seems to be one of the few cities spared that fate.

Buildings still stand tall, stretching into the sky, but most of the city that’s left is a wreck. Trash and pieces of concrete line the streets she walks through, cars lay upturned, and storefronts are destroyed. Lena walks past a coffee shop and the sight she’s met with is almost frightening. It’s like a still life, one of those paintings that people used to crowd around at museums. It almost looks as though the people who once filled that café will return to finish their coffee. They won’t, obviously. But it’s nice to pretend every so often.

She scouts out an old apartment building, searches it for any weak points and a possible escape route should anything go wrong. It’s a good place to set up for a while, she decides. It’s one of those old buildings with a tunnel connecting to other buildings, probably used during the prohibition era for smuggling. There’s also a fire escape, and from what Lena can tell, there aren’t any walkers roaming around inside the building.

It should keep her safe for the winter ahead.

~

It’s getting colder now, and the snow isn’t melting away anymore. It covers the streets in a pristine blanket, as though trying to conceal everything bad. The snow’s mostly an annoyance really. It makes going out and searching for resources harder, but it does make it safer—walkers can’t really walk through a foot of snow, and if they somehow manage that, the powerful gusts of wind usually take care of them. It always makes Lena glad to see that that hasn’t changed—that the walkers aren’t somehow evolving.

Routine makes up most of Lena’s days again. Sometimes she’ll do something spontaneous, something _almost_ exciting. One morning she watched the sunrise from the roof. And another day, some weeks ago now, she explored one of the old subway stations beneath the city, for no other reason than _why the hell not?_ She guesses her reasoning is still being influenced by Kara.

And that’s another thing—Kara is just always, somehow, on her mind. Whether it’s in some passing thought of _Kara would have said this_ or _Kara would have done that_ or _Kara would have laughed at that_. Sometimes she thinks about what Kara might be up to. Other times, she gets vivid memory flashes about the time they spent together. Their I Spy games are a common occurrence for Lena to remember, as are the quiet conversations they’d have in the dead of night. Less common for her to remember is that afternoon they spent exploring some lake near the end of summer. It’s a dangerous thing to remember. Dangerous because Lena’s mind always conjures up that one image of Kara floating on her back in the lake, fully clothed, and head tilted towards the sun. She’d almost glowed in the sun, blonde hair splayed out behind her and dancing in the murky water, and Lena remembers that in that moment, all she could think about doing was—

It’s probably best that she doesn’t think any more about it.

She falls back into her routine, because routine is safe. Routine won’t leave you or hurt you. You can trust routine. Routine is good.

~

Winter’s halfway over when Lena’s routine goes wrong.

She’s out on a supply run and she’s out later than she knows she should be—the sun set sometime ago, and now shadows are spreading out across the street. Lena’s careful to keep quiet, watching her surroundings, and baseball bat gripped tightly in her hand. She’s mostly just annoyed at herself for letting time get so far away from her. She doesn’t make mistakes like this.

When she turns onto a new street, too caught up in her own thoughts, Lena completely misses the horde of walkers gathered at the far end of the street. It’s only when she’s sixty feet away that she realises the mistake she’s made. She freezes in the street, eyes fixed ahead.

Lena starts taking small, measured steps backwards.

_Breathe in. Hold. One, two—_

She loses her footing in the thick snow and falls to the ground, letting a curse slip through her lips. It’s enough noise for a few of the walkers to glance in her direction, and when they see her they all start running towards her, gurgling and growling as they do.

Lena climbs to her feet and starts running too, the icy air she breathes in burning her lungs and throat. She darts down an alleyway and runs to the heavy door she sees at the end of it. She pulls and pushes, bangs and kicks, trying to force it open, but it won’t budge. Glancing over her shoulder, Lena sees that the walkers have turned, too, and are now funnelling into the alleyway. She glances around, searching for another way out—a fire escape to climb, a fence to jump over, or another door to bust through—but there’s nothing. That door is the only way out and it won’t open.

_This is it. Breath in. Hold. One, two, three._

The door swings open and someone grabs Lena’s arm and pulls her inside before slamming the door shut. When Lena spins around, ready to defend herself because _just because they saved you doesn’t mean they’re good_ , she sees Kara doubled over, hands on her knees, and trying to catch her breath.

“Kara?”

Kara snaps her head up and smiles like no time has passed at all. “Hey.”

“What was _that_?” Lena drops her bat and pushes Kara’s shoulder.

“ _That_ was called saving your life, or did you want to stay out there with the walkers?”

“I had it handled,” Lena says, defiant, arms crossed over her chest.

“Oh, of course. Getting trapped in the alleyway was all part of your plan I assume.”

Lena sends her a glare cold enough to compete with the temperatures outside. “What are you doing here?” She asks, and she doesn’t do much to disguise her annoyance.

“What’d you mean ‘what am I doing here?’ I’ve been looking for you. You just left in the middle of the night. You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Like you did when you left Alex?” Lena knows the comment is too harsh as soon as it leaves her mouth.

“That was mean.”

“It’s true.” And Lena doesn’t even know why she said that. It’s almost like she wants a fight. Like she wants to prove to herself that her and Kara would only be a disaster.

“I know.” Kara sighs and unzips her jacket. “We’ve been fighting a lot. I’m still at that motel—or was, I guess. She doesn’t understand why I won’t just move into one of the apartments they cleared out. I think she’s mostly just afraid that I’ll leave without saying goodbye again.”

Kara drops back against the wall and slides down so she’s sitting on the ground. Lena does, too, but keeps some space between them.

“Why did you leave?” Kara asks, and she sounds tired now.

Lena doesn’t answer, just places her hand on Kara’s knee and squeezes. “We should get a move on. It’ll be dark soon.”

“Sure, Lena. Whatever you want.”

~

They stay in the city together as the weeks carry by. They don’t really talk anymore, and when they do, it’s only in short sentences. Kara spends a lot of time sitting out on the fire escape, wrapped in a heavy coat and blanket, and Lena spends a lot of time reading. But they’re both smart enough to know that venturing out of the apartment alone would be dangerous. So, when their food stock runs low, they venture out into the city together.

They find a small corner store a few blocks away. It’s mostly empty, but there’s some canned food on the shelves. It should be enough to see them through for a week, maybe longer if they ration. They’re both sorting through the small space, Kara’s crouched down by the shelves, and Lena’s rummaging through cabinets. She finds herself glancing over at Kara periodically, a question burning on her lips.

“How did you find me?” The question just slips through Lena’s lips.

“Lucky guess,” is Kara’s curt response. She’s more focused on packing cans of beans into her bag than she is on Lena.

“No, that’s not an answer.” She steps away from the cabinets and moves closer to Kara. “We’re in a completely different state, and still, you somehow managed to find me. In a city no less. How?”

“It was just a lucky guess, Lena. Don’t think too much into it.”

“A lucky guess would be you guessing my favourite colour, not you finding me in a different state.”

“I don’t know, okay.” Kara abandons the cans of beans, stands, and faces Lena. “I just followed the road west and hoped that I’d find you. Then when it started to snow, I was near a city. I figured you might’ve gone there to get some shelter from the cold.”

“Hope, really? That’s what you’re going with?” Lena scoffs and folds her arms over her chest.

“Yes, hope, Lena. You should give it a go sometime.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lena’s voice rises a little, daring Kara to bite back. She ignores the fact that she doesn’t want to fight with Kara, and focuses on the part of her that feels like it needs to fight.

“You know what it means.”

“No, I don’t; explain it to me.”

“You know what— fine,” Kara says, voice rising to match Lena’s. “You choose not to hope. That’s your problem.”

“What’s the point of hope? You’ve seen the world we live in now.”

“What’s the— the point is that we have to hope that this isn’t it. That there’s more to life than just wandering from place-to-place!”

“No,” Lena steps closer to Kara and jabs a finger at her, “hope is a distraction. A delusion really. You hope because you refuse to accept our world.”

“I hope because if I don’t, loss is all that’s left! You’re the one who can’t accept the reality of this world. You’re so— so— _stubborn_.” Kara runs her hands through her hair. “You’re so stubborn that you can’t accept that good people still exist. So, you choose to run because you think it’s easier.”

“It’s not easier.”

“Then why did you leave me?”

“Because you would have left me!”

The words slip through Lena’s lips without her consent, and in the immediate moments that follow, everything seems to slow. She can see the moment her words register with Kara—eyes widening and mouth opening and closing, grasping at words. When Lena realises that she’s crying and that Kara is, too, she takes a deep breath and wipes her tears away. She steps away from Kara, slowly at first, then turns and leaves the little corner store, marching back through the snow to the apartment she’s been camped out in for the past two-and-a-half months.

She potters in the apartment for a while, realises that the sky is darkening, and the wind is picking up. Kara doesn’t return. Lena decides then that she’d been right all along—everyone eventually leaves.

Good riddance. She’s better off on her own anyway.

~

An hour crawls by, and Lena’s restless. She hates that she can’t just sit down and forget about Kara. Hates that this woman, who is annoyingly kind, has wormed her way into her thoughts and heart. And— fuck, Lena’s already grabbing her coat and baseball bat as she leaves the apartment to go find Kara.

She marches back through the snow, pushing against the wind, towards the corner store she left Kara at. She can feel something bubbling inside her, which she decides must be rage or annoyance, because _why the fuck is she risking her life by marching through a foot of snow in search of Kara?_

There’s a word that nibbles at her mind, a word that explains everything she’s feeling—the rage and annoyance and worry—but Lena pushes it down deep and focuses on trying to not trip and fall in the snow.

“Fuck you, Kara,” Lena says to herself, even though she knows that she doesn’t mean it at all.

She turns onto the street and hugs her coat tighter to her body to ward off the icy wind that cuts at exposed skin. She picks up her pace a little bit, and once she’s a little bit closer, she hears voices. A few of them, too. Then there’s a low rumble starting up and Lena knows that’s definitely a car or a truck of some kind.

It’s people.

A hand grabs Lena’s arm and pulls her into an alleyway before the truck rumbles down the street and has a chance to spot her. She’s pushed up against the cold brick wall and is just about swing at this person with her bat when she realises—

“Kara?”

Kara presses her hand to Lena’s mouth and shakes her head. “Hunters,” she whispers into Lena’s ear.

Lena turns her head to watch the truck rumble by. It’s one of the old military cars that used to patrol the streets of cities years ago now. There are floodlights on the roof of the truck, and two people stand on the flatbed, holding tight to a bar on the back of the truck as it zooms down the street.

When Lena turns her head back to face Kara, she realises just how close they are. Kara’s standing in front of her, face so close, and eyes wide and fixed on Lena. And Lena wonders if—

Never mind.

They wait a few minutes until the rumble of the truck is completely gone.

Lena gently pushes Kara back and clears her throat. “We need to go.” She grabs Kara’s hand and pulls her out of the alleyway and back to the apartment.

Kara plants her feet in the snow, forcing Lena to stop.

“What are you doing?” Lena hisses. “We have to go.”

“My bag’s still in there.”

“We’re not going back; it’s too dangerous.”

“I’ll be quick,” Kara says, flashing that grin that has somehow become one of her favourite things, but right now is just annoying because _this is not a time for smiling!_ Her hand slips out of Lena’s, and before Lena has a chance to stop it, Kara’s sneaking back into the corner store.

Lena watches Kara run back down the snowy street and slip into the corner store. It takes all of five seconds for Lena to follow after her.

“Fuck you, Kara,” Lena says, again to herself, and maybe she means it just a little bit this time.

When Lena slips back inside, she finds Kara crouched behind a shelf. She makes a move to get closer but stops dead in her tracks when a walker gurgles and wanders dangerously close. Lena ducks behind the old checkout counter. The walker leaves the store in a sluggishly slow pace, and once it’s finally gone, Lena releases a long-held breath.

She peers out over the counter and can see Kara inching closer towards her bag, making sure to stay clear of the small group of walkers gathered near the back. But Kara doesn’t see the walker hovering at the other side of the store, and it doesn’t look like she’s going to. The walker hasn’t seen Kara yet, but Lena’s certain that it will.

Kara’s closer to her bag now, but just before she has a chance to grab it, she bumps into the shelf and knocks a glass bottle to the ground. It shatters and the walkers all turn towards the noise. They lock onto Kara who realises, with horror, the mistake she’s made.

The six walkers all lunge towards her, and Kara scrambles for her bow but there’s not enough time to load it and take aim. Lena jumps in with her baseball bat and swings at the walker who’d been about to grab Kara. They work together, swinging and hitting, to take out each walker.

Lena doesn’t notice the walker lunging towards her from behind, but Kara does. Adrenaline powers her. She reaches out to grab Lena’s shoulder and pull her out of the way just as the walker goes in for a bite. Still powered on adrenaline, Kara uses her bow to push the walker back and then Lena raises her bat up and swings down hard on the walker’s head. It crumbles beneath the force of the swing, making that sound that Lena used to hate but now doesn’t really bother her much.

The dust settles and Lena lets her bat _clatter_ to the ground as she takes a few deep breaths. She turns around to face Kara and the momentary relief she feels disappears the instant her eyes drift down to Kara’s left forearm. Her sleeve is torn and there’s blood seeping from the wound that’s beginning to turn nasty shades of yellow, green, and purple. It’s a sight that Lena hasn’t seen too much lately, but it’s one that’s familiar and impossible to forget.

“You’ve been bitten,” Lena says, almost a whisper, as though she’s hoping that saying it quietly makes it less true. And there’s the hope. The hope Kara can’t shut up about, and the hope that somehow, against all odds, settled deep in Lena’s heart.

“It’s fine,” is all Kara says. She reaches for her bag and pulls out a first-aid kit to wrap her forearm in a bandage, as though that’ll help it.

“No, it’s not fine! You’ve been bitten. That’s how this fucking infection spreads, Kara. You’ve been bitten and now you’re going to…” Lena can’t bring herself to finish the sentence because Kara’s been bitten, and now Kara’s going to turn into a walker, and then she’ll have to— no, no, no. She can’t. She won’t. Lena can’t lose Kara, not after she just got her back.

And suddenly, Lena realises why this time is different, why Kara is different. The word that had been nibbling at the back of her mind emerges from the box she’d pushed it into; it hits her, it consumes her. The reason she’d hated leaving Kara all those months ago, the reason she can’t stand to lose Kara now, it’s because— because—

"I'm immune."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: [@just-some-girlll](https://just-some-girlll.tumblr.com/)


	5. spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright. final chapter. here we go. apologies for the delay.

Immune. Fucking immune.

Lena wants to laugh. Or scream. Or cry. Or maybe all fucking three, because here they are, in some dusty old corner store, six walkers dead on the ground around them, and Kara’s telling her that she’s immune as she wraps a bite mark— _a bite mark_ —in a bandage.

“No, this… You aren’t— you can’t be— you aren’t immune… no one is.” Of course, it’s denial that comes out. Lena feels strangely relieved that it is. If everything else she thought she knew, she relied on, she _trusted_ , is getting ripped to pieces, at least there’s one thing she can count on. Denial: a stupid fucking emotion that really doesn’t help anyone.

“Lena?” Kara places her hand on Lena’s shoulder, probably hoping to express… _something_ through the simple gesture. It’s probably something akin to comfort or sorrow or, hell, maybe even pity. But all the touch does is make Lena uncomfortable.

Kara’s hand on her shoulder feels like a weight, or maybe a clamp. A clamp that’s slowly getting tighter and tighter even though she knows Kara isn’t squeezing. She shrugs Kara’s hand off and takes two steps back. “Say it again,” she says, even though she heard it clearly the first time. She just wants— no, _needs_ , to hear it again. Perhaps then the denial will go away.

“I’m immune.”

“I see.”

That pushes the denial away but hearing it again doesn’t make it better. It actually makes it worse. As though it was the final blow to drive the metaphorical stake through her heart. And— oh, yes, that’s right, Lena had a realisation before, a realisation which not only complicates things, but makes this hurt more. The realisation explains everything—why it’d hurt so much to leave Kara, and why she can’t bear the thought of losing Kara now, even though Kara obviously doesn’t trust her as much as she does her. It’s love. Why the fuck did it have to be love?

“It’s dark,” Lena says, “and we’ve probably made enough noise to gain the attention of any nearby walkers. So, we should go.” She turns on her heels and begins walking away.

Kara chases after her. “Lena, can’t we talk about this?”

Lena stops and turns to face Kara. “You mean about how you lied to me? Sure, let’s talk about that.”

“I never lied to you. My” —Kara swallows, struggling with the next word— “immunity never came up.”

“Okay, so, you didn’t lie. You just don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you.” Kara takes a step forward, desperate, but Lena takes one back.

“No. No, you don’t.” Lena’s voice hardens as she tries to push her realisation into a box. “If you trusted me at all, you would have told me. And if you knew me at all, you would know that trust is the most important thing to me.”

“Okay, that’s not fair.” Kara matches Lena’s tone and straightens her posture a little bit. “I do trust you. I trust you with everything I’ve got.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Because it was my secret! I get to choose who I share it with.”

“So, you didn’t want me to know then.”

“No, that’s not— I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it, Kara? Because the way I see it, what you _meant_ is quite obvious.” Lena looks at Kara, really looks at her, searching for the answer she wants, even though she has no idea what she wants that answer to be.

“Look it’s just… it’s complicated.”

“Bullshit. That’s not a reason, Kara. You don’t get to say that it’s complicated. You have no idea what complicated is!”

“I have no idea—” Kara scoffs. “Complicated is whatever the fuck we are! We kiss, and then don’t talk about it. We nearly die together, and still, we never talk about it. But what’s really complicated, is the fact that I’ve been falling in love with you since the moment we met, and it took you leaving me for me to realise that.”

“No. You do not get to say that.” Lena jabs a finger at Kara, and this fight is starting to feel all too familiar. They need to stop, because there’s no way it ends well if they keep going like this.

“Why not?” Kara asks, like she’s waiting, like she _knows_. She takes a step towards Lena. Lena lets her.

“Because…”

 _Because it’s too much_ , is what she wants to scream. It’s like there’s a flood inside her head, a flood of feelings and realisations, that sweeps into her neat and organised room of boxes. It pulls the boxes out of their places, tips the contents out onto the floor, and it’s like oil and water; all of those once neatly packed emotions just sit on the surface, waiting and mocking and creating a huge fucking mess that she’s going to have to clean up. It’s too much. She doesn’t want this oil spill. This cruel cocktail of messy feelings. She just wants to feel one thing.

She’s kissing Kara before she can tell herself not to.

Her fingers curl around the collar of Kara’s jacket to pull her in close. She’s vaguely aware of Kara’s arms gesturing in the air for a moment as her brain catches up to what’s happening. And once Kara does catch up, her arms settle around Lena’s waist to draw her in a little bit closer, and then she matches Lena’s enthusiasm.

They push against each other, like they’re trying to prove that this means nothing even though it means everything. Lena curves against Kara, and Kara nips at Lena’s bottom lip. And it’s… it’s good. Good in the way that it settles the floodwaters in Lena’s mind. The water’s still there—and so is the oil spill—because this kiss isn’t a solution, but it calms the water. It gives Lena a moment of clarity, a moment of peace.

When they separate, they’re both breathless.

The gurgling of more walkers that are getting closer and closer is what bursts their little bubble.

“We should…” Lena starts, pulling away.

“Right. Yes.” Kara nods, steeling herself. Her arms settle somewhat awkwardly at her side.

Once Lena’s got her bat and Kara her bag, they hightail it out of the corner store and back to the apartment. They climb up the fire escape and spill into the apartment. They stand in the centre of what used to be the living room, unmoving, and eyes fixed on each other. It’s Kara who speaks first:

“What now?”

“I don’t know.”

~

They don’t talk about it. ‘It’ being Kara’s immunity… the declaration… this kiss… _everything_. At first, Lena thinks it’s just easier that way—easier to pretend none of it happened. But as the days and weeks carry on, Lena guesses it might be inevitable that they talk. Strangely, the inevitability does something to settle Lena. It reassures her; gives her something to count on.

Then spring comes, and each day, Lena tells herself to say something, to end this ridiculous stalemate they have going on. Because even though that inevitability provided her with some semblance of comfort, with the secure white blanket of winter gone, she feels more exposed and vulnerable than ever before. But each day, Lena tells herself that _now is not the right time_.

So, Lena focuses on their survival instead. She learns that the group of hunters occupying the city is a lot larger than she initially thought. There’s an organised system of them, she learns, something that spans more than just the downtown area. And from the chatter she’s been able to pick up from the old CB radio she salvaged at the start of spring, she’s able to get a rough idea of their patrol schedule. Lena’s also careful to record details about the places she and Kara visit and the number of walkers they find in any one area.

It’s late in the night, when Lena’s hunched over the small table near the kitchen, listening to the chatter come through on the radio, when Kara sits down beside her.

“We can’t stay here,” Kara says, direct and matter of fact. “It’s not safe and it hasn’t been for a while.”

“It’s fine.” Lena fiddles with the knobs on the CB radio—an attempt to end the conversation.

“No, it’s not. It’s only a matter of time until we make a mistake, or they do a sweep of this building. And what then? They have numbers beyond anything we can handle.”

“I’ve handled worse.”

“And how did that turn out for you?”

“Fuck you! You don’t know me, and you have no idea what I’ve been through.” Lena pushes away from the radio and goes to stand in the small kitchen.

“Fine!” Kara follows after Lena but still keeps some distance between them. “Fuck me. I’m an asshole—”

“No, you don’t get to agree with me. We’re fighting, so you _can’t_ agree with me.”

“Why not?”

Lena doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know what to say.

“You’re angry at me for keeping a secret, and I get that. But please, don’t let that anger cloud your judgement. Staying in this city is the wrong choice, and I know you know that, too—”

“Shut up.”

Kara splutters out a confused, “What?”

“Sorry, just… be quiet please.” Lena squeezes her eyes shut and tries to think. Tries to arrange her thoughts, which have been out of control for weeks now. Eventually, she exhales deeply and opens her eyes. “I’m not angry because you didn’t tell me that you’re immune,” she starts, careful and hesitant, as though dipping her toe into the water. “I’m angry because I thought I was going to lose you. And, Kara, I can’t lose you. Not again.”

There’s a brief pause between them. A brief moment where the words that have been itching at Lena for months hang on the tip of her tongue. “Also…” she starts, willing herself to _just say the words_. And Kara hangs onto that, looking at Lena with one of those smiles you only come across two or three times in life—the kind that says _I’m here and I won’t go anywhere_.

Lena exhales deeply again, decides that the water is fine, and then jumps right in. “I’m in love with you. And that absolutely terrifies me.”

“Oh.”

They stare at each other for a long moment after that, the air between them taut like a rubber band stretched to its limit. And then, before Lena’s even really aware of it, the rubber band snaps and they’re kissing again. She has no idea who kissed who first this time, doesn’t really care to be honest, because _this_ —Kara’s lips on hers, Kara’s arms holding her close, and Kara smiling against her lips—is pretty fucking amazing. It’s not heated or angry or trying to prove a point. It’s a little bit of a promise, but more than anything else, it’s just trying to rebuild shattered trust.

They stumble out of the small kitchen and collapse onto the mattress in the living room together, and notions of _tomorrow_ and _later_ and _are we in the middle of a fight?_ are all so far away. So, everything that happens next is the easiest anything’s ever been.

~

The sky’s still dark when Lena wakes up, but there’s a bit of a blue tint to it, and for the first time in a very long time, she’s not completely alone—Kara’s asleep beside her. She rolls onto her side and watches Kara sleep for a moment, watches the way her breathing comes out steady and even, and takes comfort in that. Takes comfort in the regularity and familiarity of it. Then when Kara moves in her sleep, her shirt sleeve rolls up just enough for Lena to see a little bit of the scar on her upper arm.

 _A chemical burn_ , she remembers Kara saying so many months ago when they’d gone swimming in a lake. But then she also remembers the way Kara had quickly shifted the conversation after that and was always careful to keep her upper arm covered.

“You’re staring,” Kara says, voice heavy with sleep and eyes still closed, but a faint smile tugging at her lips.

“Is that a problem?”

Kara opens her eyes and grins. “Never.” She shifts a little closer to Lena and presses a quick kiss to her lips.

They don’t say much in the moments that follow. But it’s Lena who speaks next, her words coming out mostly to herself and almost as a relieved breath. “You’re immune.”

Kara hums and traces a lazy pattern up Lena’s arm.

“Do you know how?”

Kara shrugs and makes a point to avoid Lena’s gaze as she continues to trace patterns on her arm. “Alex guessed it was a genetic mutation of some kind. Something to do with the way my cells processed the infection. Maybe it was the sun, maybe it was something else.”

“You never found out?”

“No. I was bitten on outbreak day. I’m sure you remember, but back then, the strategy was to kill anyone who had been bitten. So, Alex and I kept it to ourselves.”

“And a cure?”

“There was never anything in National City, but I’d heard rumours of one out east. I spent a few years wandering around trying to find people who were developing one, even went to the ground zero zones in Metropolis, but I never found anything.”

“Who else knows?”

“Just you and Alex. Even in the quarantine zones, a whisper of someone being bitten never ended well. It only got worse when I left. People didn’t want to trust someone they thought would turn at any second. They would do anything if it meant they could survive another day. Can’t say I really blame them.”

“So, you were scared then. Of telling people.”

“Of course, I was. And I still am. Part of me still thinks I’ll turn even after all this time. That I’ll wake up one day and I won’t be _me_. This world we live in… I’d be worried if someone said they weren’t scared.”

A moment of silence passes, and then Lena says, “You were right. Last night, I mean. We should leave. It’s not safe anymore, and I think…” she sighs and fiddles with the collar of Kara’s shirt. “I think I was scared of leaving. Staying here gave me something to focus on, something to distract from everything else, and I think I needed that.”

“Do you still need it?”

“Maybe. But this place has served its purpose—it gave us shelter, kept us safe. I think I’m ready to leave.”

“Where would you like to go then?”

“I don’t know,” Lena says, and wonders if Kara knows that what she really means is _not Smallville. Not yet._

“I know a place,” Kara says a moment later. “It’s not close, but it’ll be worth it. I promise.”

“I trust you.”

~

They make it onto what’s left of the interstate a few days later. It’s overgrown now, succumbing to the will of nature. They stop and check the cars left abandoned on the road, too, but none of them start. Kara just shrugs and says that _the walk’ll be fun_ , and then she asks Lena if she wants to play I Spy.

“Can I ask you a question?” Lena says later in the day as a gentle breeze whistles through the trees.

“Go for it.” Kara kicks a rock across the asphalt and watches the way it skips and skids across the crumbling surface.

“Back in the city, why did you go back for you bag?”

Kara glances over at Lena, regards her for a moment, and then pulls her bag around to the front of her body and riffles through it. She pulls her hand out a moment later, something clasped tightly in her fist. She opens her palm and holds it out to Lena. There’s a necklace in Kara’s hand—a small blue stone on a chain.

“My birth parents died when I was thirteen, so it was years before all of this,” Kara starts, gesturing vaguely to their situation. “This was the last thing my mother gave me. It’s the only piece of her I have left. I couldn’t leave it there for someone else to take.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Kara smiles and tucks it back into her bag. “I know it’s probably stupid, I mean it’s just a necklace—”

“It’s not stupid if it makes you feel better, Kara. So, hold onto it. Treasure it.”

“Still, I’m sorry for putting you in danger.”

“I know you are.” Lena reaches for Kara’s hand and squeezes.

They walk for a while longer, and it’s when they stop at a cluster of cars for the night that Kara finds something in the trunk of a green sedan.

“Lena, look.” Kara holds up the box of Risk, smiling like she’s gunning for a challenge. “And the best part is” —she opens the box and produces the blue pieces— “this set has got my lucky colour.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Sounds like you’re afraid of a little challenge.”

“The colour of the pieces has nothing to do with how well you play.”

“Prove it then.”

Lena narrows her eyes and stares at Kara for a moment, then says, “Game on.”

They play a game in the dying light and Kara wins. She insists her victory is because of the blue pieces, while Lena rolls her eyes and insists it was just simple probability. Lena smiles when she sees Kara slip the bag of blue pieces into her backpack later and pretends that she doesn’t see it.

~

It’s weeks later when they reach the edge of a town. Kara stops in the middle of the road that curls around a cliff and does a little _ta-da!_ gesture with her hands. “We’re here,” she says.

“And where exactly is _here_?” Lena looks around for a sign or road marker but finds none.

“One sec.” Kara searches around the side of the road for a moment, eventually finding something and dragging it out onto the road.

It’s a sign, Lena notes, old and beaten up. Kara dusts it off with her sleeve and turns it around for Lena to see.

“Welcome to Midvale,” Kara says, gesturing widely to their surroundings.

There’s not much around them, mostly just a dense forest and the road they’re on has seen far better days. Although Lena can hear the distant sound of waves crashing against a rocky shore. She wonders just how far they are from the coast. She doubts they’re far.

“It’s where I grew up,” Kara says.

Lena snaps her head back to look at Kara and her heart picks up its pace a little bit in her chest, because this suddenly feels like something serious. Not serious in the way that Kara’s bringing Lena home to meet her parents.

“Mom, Dad, this is Lena,” Lena imagines Kara saying. And then there’d be smiles and handshakes and maybe even a hug. It’d probably be awkward, but Lena thinks it might actually be sort of nice.

Anyway, that’s not what this is. That world is gone. This is just two people visiting a town that’s been dead for years. But Lena still feels like there’s some weight to this moment as Kara leads her through the twisting streets of Midvale. Like Kara’s letting Lena in and asking her to _please be gentle_. And of course, Lena’s never going to intentionally hurt Kara, just like she knows Kara’s never going to try hurt her.

Lena takes Kara’s hand as they walk, and for a moment, it feels like they’ve created something normal in this new and frightening world.

It’s a short walk later when Kara stops them out front of a blue panelled house. The yard is overgrown and the house itself is trashed—broken windows and graffiti, and the roof above the garage has almost completely collapsed. But Lena tries to imagine the house as it once stood, and she likes the image her brain conjures up.

“This is the house Alex and I grew up in,” Kara says, and when Lena looks over at Kara, she notes that she doesn’t seem sad or angry with how it wound up. She looks tired yet content, like this what she’d been searching for all this time.

Lena doesn’t tell Kara that the house is beautiful; she doubts it would provide her with much peace. But she does squeeze Kara’s hand and asks if she wants to have a look inside.

Kara nods and says, “Yes.” She lets her hand slip from Lena’s as she begins walking up the steep driveway.

Lena follows Kara into the house but stays in the kitchen as Kara explores the house for herself. Kara doesn’t take anything as she wanders through each room, doesn’t dare disturb the peace her old home seems to have found.

~

They stay in Midvale for the rest of spring, camped out in a small house along the beach. It’s when they’re sitting in the shade of a large tree on the beach that Lena realises Kara’s not covering the chemical burn on her upper arm and that it’s been a while since she last did.

“I did it to myself,” Kara says, and that’s when Lena realises that she’s been caught staring.

And Lena thinks she knows why Kara did it, but she still asks anyway.

“To cover the bite mark. Alex wasn’t too pleased when I did it. She wanted to try cover it with a tattoo, but she’s my sister so I definitely don’t trust her to do that for me.”

Lena laughs at the admission and Kara smiles, too.

“Did it hurt?”

“The bite or the burn?”

“Either.”

“They both hurt. But at least with the burn I wasn’t afraid I’d turn into one of those things.”

They don’t say anything after that, and there seems to be a quiet understanding, subtle like the warm ocean breeze, that passes between the pair.

~

Days later, Kara and Lena stand at the edge of Midvale, the sun high above them and indicative of summer’s imminent arrival. Lena breathes in deeply, listens to the distant sound of waves crashing against the rocky shore, and then exhales.

“Where to?” Kara asks, thumbs hooked through her belt loops and head tipped back to look up at the sky.

Lena smiles wide and bright. “Home.”

“And where’s that?” There’s a trace of a smile on Kara’s face when she looks at Lena.

Lena pulls out her map and points to the circled mark of Smallville she added so many months ago.

“Home we go then,” Kara says with a matching smile and decisive nod.

They walk for a short while in easy silence. Kara kicks a small rock across the asphalt and Lena feels a distant memory emerge from the box she’d packed it into. For the briefest of moments, she considers pushing it back, but she embraces it instead.

“That house you mentioned a few months ago,” Lena starts, “the one on the outskirts of Smallville. Are you still thinking about fixing it up?”

“Maybe.” Kara shrugs. “I don’t really wanna do it by myself though. I think I’d get lonely out there, y’know?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Kara kicks the small rock again and Lena adjusts her bag straps.

“Maybe… maybe I could help you,” Lena ventures. “And keep you company out there, too.”

“You wouldn’t get bored staying in one place?”

Lena shrugs, a small smile curling her lips up. “I could get a hobby. Sketching maybe?”

“I thought you said you can’t sketch.”

“I could practice.”

“You could.”

“Maybe you could help me with that. Since I'm helping you fix up this house.”

"Seems only fair that I do.”

And now they’re both smiling wide. Kara bumps Lena’s shoulder with her own and their fingers brush together, sending a little jolt of something warm through Lena. Perhaps, for the first time in a very long time, what she’s feeling is hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: [@just-some-girlll](https://just-some-girlll.tumblr.com/)


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